The cause was complications from liver cancer, said his manager, Frank Bilotta. “Leave It to Beaver,” which aired from 1957 to 1963, depicted an idyllic suburban postwar American household and became a cultural touchstone of the baby boom generation. Hugh Beaumont was the handsome, ever-patient father, Ward Cleaver, and Barbara Billingsley played the glamorous and understanding matriarch, June, who swept in her high heels and always put her boys to bed. Starring as the adorable title character — the flamboyant, freckled Theodore “Beaver” Cleaver — was Jerry Mathers, who was 8 years old when the show started. Mr Dow, who was 12, played the good-natured and athletic eldest son, Wally, who developed an interest in girls. Ken Osmond had a memorable, recurring role as Wally’s insincere friend Eddie, who is always making out with the adults. The sitcom began on CBS, but appeared for most of its run on third-party network ABC and was never a big hit. But thanks to its gentle, wry humor and appealing ensemble cast, it thrived in syndication much longer than the more popular family sitcoms of the time, including “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet,” “Father Knows Best” and “The Donna Reed Show”. ,” noted television scholar Robert Thompson. With his light brown hair, his electric blue eyes and the athletic build of a championship diver — which he was before he joined the show — Mr. Dow was promoted as a teenage heartthrob and received more than 1,000 fan letters a week at the sitcom’s peak. Years later, Mathers remembered Mr. Dow as his “cool” character: soft-spoken, kind and possessed of gymnastic skills which he demonstrated by walking up and down a flight of stairs on his hands. Finding that the options for a former child actor were limited, Mr. Dow made his living on the dinner-theater circuit in the 1970s. A producer, who was putting together a Kansas City production of the farce “Boeing, Boeing,” had the idea to reunite Mr. Dow and Mathers. To their surprise, they were met with packed and wildly enthusiastic audiences for weeks. The two actors toured in another tour, “So Long, Stanley!”, for more than a year before Hollywood producers hired them and other surviving members of the original cast of “Leave It to Beaver”—Beaumont had died in 1982 – for a CBS. -TV Movie Reunion, “Still the Beaver” (1983). Wally was now a successful lawyer, Beaver was unemployed, divorced and trying to cope with his own mischievous sons, and June was still giving helpful advice around the house. The program was a hit and spawned two sitcoms, most notably “The New Leave It to Beaver” on Ted Turner’s superstation, WTBS, from 1986 to 1989. Many critics likened watching “Beaver” revivals to entering a time warp. But Mr. Dow defended the enduring appeal of the idealized Cleavers amid a rapidly changing television culture. “When I watch a show about drugs, it might be an interesting story and I can get involved, but it doesn’t have the same identity as when Beaver took his father’s power drill and put a hole in the garage door.” Mr. Dow told the Houston Chronicle in 1988. “These stories are what make up real life and growing up from child to adulthood. People say the show is milk and cookies, but I disagree. I think it’s the essence of growing up.” Anthony Lee Dow was born in Hollywood on April 13, 1945 and grew up in the Van Nuys area of Los Angeles. His mother was once a Mack Sennett “Bathing Beauty” who became a body type for silent film star Clara Bow and, briefly, a stunt double in westerns. His father designed, built and renovated houses. Mr. Dow said he grew up without much interest in show business, focusing instead on athletics. He was a trampolinist as well as a Junior Olympic and Western States champion swimmer and diver. In 1956, when he was 11 years old, a lifeguard asked him to audition with him for a family television show called “Johnny Wildlife.” “He thought it would help him and me get the job since I was supposed to be playing his son,” Mr. Dow told the New York Daily News. “He didn’t get the part, but I did.” The pilot didn’t sell, and Mr. Dow soon returned to the swimming life, until the next year, when the producers of “Leave It to Beaver” came looking for a new Wally. The child actor from the pilot of “Beaver” had an unfortunate growth spurt, and one of the producers of “Johnny Wildlife” recommended Mr. Dow as a replacement. After the production of “Leave It to Beaver” ended, he studied painting and psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles, played dramatic and comedic guest roles in various television series and appeared in a teen soap opera called “Never Too Young”. But after he joined the National Guard in the mid-1960s, he said, his career stalled. Not knowing when he might be ordered to report for active duty made it almost impossible to make commitments. Referring to a popular cop show, he told the Philadelphia Inquirer, “I did an ‘Adam-12’ — I think because I was the only actor in town at the time with short hair.” For years, he lived on a boat, made sculpture, and lived on income earned mostly from a construction business. Despite the perpetual airing of “Leave It to Beaver,” Mr. Dow didn’t get rich from the show. Due to contract, he only received residual payments for four years after the sitcom’s release. Beginning in his 20s, he said, he began a long and gradual descent into clinical depression. “I would say the legacy had more to do with it than the acting,” he told the Chicago Tribune. “It was a disease that ran in my mother’s family. But surely ‘Leave It to Beaver’ had something to do with it. It definitely had to do with raising one’s expectations and establishing certain criteria that you would expect to carry on in life.” Attempts to return to acting only exacerbated his dark moods. He had played hitmen, single fathers and lawmen on other shows, but casting agents couldn’t get past their perception of the clean-cut and serious Wally. That so few people talked openly about depression compounded his private struggle, he said, and for years, he couldn’t find ways to manage what he called a “self-absorbed feeling of worthlessness, hopelessness.” He was approaching 40 before he began to stabilize, thanks to what he called a significant improvement in available drug treatments. In his frequent speeches on mental health, Mr Dow noted that he was “just one of millions” who have depression. “If Wally Cleaver can be depressed,” he said, “anyone can be.” Moving away from acting and focusing on other art forms also helped. He was moderately successful as a sculptor, with works appearing in galleries and international exhibitions. Beginning with “The New Leave It to Beaver” in 1988, Mr. Dow also began a career as a television director, and his credits included episodes of “Babylon 5” and “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.” His first marriage, to Carol Marlow, ended in divorce. In 1980, he married Lauren Shulkind, whom he met while working at an advertising agency looking for an “all-American guy” to star in a McDonald’s commercial. In addition to his wife, survivors include a son from his first marriage, Christopher. a brother? and a granddaughter. In interviews, Mathers said there was a lot of Mr. Dow in Wally, that the character was less a performance than a reflection. He was, by all accounts, an underrated figure in a profession full of showmanship. ”I could never understand the reaction Jerry or I would get from people,” Mr. Dow told the Kansas City Star in 2003. ”Then I was on a plane one time and I passed this guy and he seemed very intimate. . I asked a flight attendant, “Who is this guy?” And he said, “Oh, that’s it [Harlem Globetrotter] Meadowlark Lemon.’ And the biggest smile came to my face. “Suddenly I knew what it was,” he continued. “I mean, I don’t I know what is — but it happened to me. I just got this warm feeling and smiled and thought, “You know, this is really cool.” “
